The runtime for Neil Marshall’s Hellboy reboot, starring David Harbour as the demonic superhero, has been revealed to be exactly two hours. First introduced by creator Mike Mignola in 1993, the Dark Horse comics character Hellboy first made the leap to the big screen in 2004 with Guillermo Del Toro in the director’s chair and Ron Perlman portraying Hellboy himself. Del Toro and Perlman returned for a sequel, 2008’s Hellboy II: The Golden Army.

Del Toro always hoped to make a third Hellboy film, but unfortunately that was not in the cards. Now, the character will return to theaters for an R-rated reboot starring Harbour as Hellboy, with Marshall directing. The R rating means the new Hellboy will be able to more accurately recreate the incredibly violent tone of the original comic, and indeed that outrageous level of violence has already been previewed in trailers teasing all the action in the upcoming film.

Fans already know that Hellboy will sport an R rating when it comes to movie theaters, and now the movie’s runtime has been revealed as well. Anton Volkov of the website Trailer Track passed along information from the German website SPIO indicating that the new Hellboy is fully finished and has a runtime of exactly 120 minutes. The German title of the film interestingly is reported as Hellboy - Call of Darkness, a nod to the limited series Hellboy comic “Darkness Calls,” which is one of the inspirations for the new film along with “The Wild Hunt” and “The Storm and the Fury.”

The 120 minute runtime for the rebooted Hellboy is indeed in line with the previous two Hellboy films. The 2004 original ran for 122 minutes and the sequel The Golden Army clocked in at exactly 120 minutes. Plot-wise, the reboot sees Hellboy doing battle with the undead sorceress Nimue, played by Milla Jovovich. Ian McShane plays Hellboy’s mentor Trevor Bruttenholm, together with Sasha Lane as Alice Monaghan, Daniel Dae Kim as Ben Daimio, Thomas Haden Church as Lobster Johnson and Sophie Okonedo as Lady Hatton. Original Hellboy actor Doug Jones, who played Abe Sapien, was offered a role in the reboot but turned down the opportunity.

With its R rating, the 2019 version of Hellboy will certainly have the opportunity to surpass the original films in terms of adult content and bloody violence, and that may actually make it more like the Dark Horse comics that inspired it. It remains to be seen however if the new take on Hellboy will catch on with a broader audience the way Deadpool did when it too smashed the R-rated barrier and delivered a more hardcore cinematic take on superheroes.

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Source: SPIO (via Anton Volkov/Twitter)

  • Hellboy Release Date: 2019-04-12